Category Archives: Libya

The sad but unsurprising acquittal of George Zimmerman has uncovered the racial oppression that remains the bedrock of American capitalism even under a black President. It is a cruel irony that just a few weeks ago, a narrow Supreme Court majority gutted the Voting Rights Act by citing a dramatic improvement in racial equality since the Civil Rights Movement. A jury has ruled that in Florida, it is legal to kill young black men (17-year-old Martin was not a “boy,” as paternalistic guilty liberals have repeatedly stated) if one thinks they’re “scary.” This finding is only notable since it applies domestically. Abroad, drone strikes have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of black and brown people with little fanfare, beginning under the Bush administration and ramping up under President Obama. As political polarization intensifies and elites are unable to resolve the capitalist financial crisis, formal “post-racialism” is falling by the wayside so that bigotry can again be used as a tool to garner support for austerity at home and recolonization in Africa.

Thinking about all of the injustice surrounding the case of Trayvon Martin today, I couldn’t but help but think about Muammar Gaddafi. Why? The Socialist People’s Libyan Jamahiriyah, the state of the masses outlined by Gaddafi, was a world leader in racial equality and human rights for people of color.

A world-historical hero in our time, taken from us before our own eyes. Never forget.

Libya, with its borders drawn by the old colonial powers, has a large black African minority. Muammar Gaddafi launched the September 1 Revolution inspired by his Egyptian counterpart, the Arab nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser. Despite this, Gaddafi’s Green Book highlighted the important contributions of blacks to world history and predicted they would become the dominant people of the world. Seeing how Arab nationalism was being used by corrupt neoimperial regimes to manipulate their citizens, Gaddafi called on the Libyan government to abandon this ideology in favor of a radical vision of a united African continent. The Brother Leader, a Bedouin Muslim, became a pan-Africanist. His efforts toward African unity led traditional elders to coronate Gaddafi as the symbolic “King of Africa.”

King of Kings.

Gaddafi was made fun of for his famous bodyguards, who were all female and many of whom were black. But this was actually a beautiful action: showing the nation that Gaddafi was committed to women’s empowerment to such an extent that he put his life in their hands. It was a wonderful rejection of ugly stereotypes. Where others saw weakness in these individuals because of their gender or skin color, Gaddafi saw strength.

Under the socialist government, Libya sustainably developed to the point that it became the most developed country in Africa and the standard of living outranked countries including Brazil, Russia, and China. People from elsewhere in Africa flocked to the country for jobs, education, and opportunity. A tiny minority of monarchists, al Qaeda extremists, and corporate neoliberals set out to overthrow the Libyan system of socialist direct democracy in February 2011 as part of the “Arab Spring” color revolutions. The Jamahiriya put up a valiant resistance to a 2011 military campaign launched by NATO, the most powerful military alliance the world has ever known. The Libyan government went so far as to arm its people. Ultimately, however, a country of 5 million inhabitants could not withstand the constant shock-and-awe bombing and targeted killings engineered by Western powers. NATO’s quislings on the ground engaged in racial terror, committing depraved acts of terror against majority-black towns like Tawergha and dark-skinned political prisoners. Gaddafi was murdered by “Islamists” who rejected his pleas for Quranic compassion.

The first black President of the United States said in response to the Zimmerman verdict, “we are a nation of laws.” Not a nation of social justice or equality or diversity. A nation of law-and-order, of militarism, of fear and paranoia. After four years of authorizing drone strike murders of brown-skinned adults and kids, Obama has ditched the lofty racial rhetoric that propelled him to his office. Black Americans have not had allies in the bourgeoisie since the defeat of Radical Reconstruction.

The legalized killing of Trayvon Martin symbolizes the deranged nature of the capitalist system, of which racism is an important pillar. Undoing that system by standing up to oppression at home and abroad is the key to ending institutional racism and building an egalitarian world.

Buried deep within a fascinating New York Times Magazine profile of the French spy novelist Girard De Villiers comes the fascinating tidbit that many at the CIA think Iran – and not Muammar Qaddafi, as the official story goes – was behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people.

I asked de Villiers about his next novel, and his eyes lighted up. “It goes back to an old story,” he said. “Lockerbie.” The book is based on the premise that it was Iran – not Libya – that carried out the notorious 1988 airliner bombing. The Iranians went to great lengths to persuade Muammar el-Qaddafi to take the fall for the attack, which was carried out in revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by American missiles six months earlier, de Villiers said. This has long been an unverified conspiracy theory, but when I returned to the United States, I learned that de Villiers was onto something. I spoke to a former C.I.A. operative who told me that “the best intelligence” on the Lockerbie bombing points to an Iranian role. It is a subject of intense controversy at the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., he said, in part because the evidence against Iran is classified and cannot be used in court, but many at the agency believe Iran directed the bombing.

Senator and failed presidential candidate John Kerry has been confirmed as the newest Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton. During her tenure, Clinton infamously joked about the murder of Muammar Gaddafi after overseeing the destruction of Libya in addition to human rights atrocities across Africa and attempted regime change in Syria. Her bloody legacy also includes the U.S. ‘pivot’ to Asia, focusing imperialism on containing and destroying China.

Clinton used her status as a feminist icon to shore up support from cruise missile liberals at home for adventures abroad, destroying some of the world’s most pro-woman governments in the process. Her time as Secretary also saw the emergence of what is sure to be a key tactic of all future administrations — using gay rights rhetoric while propping up virulently anti-gay regimes in Uganda, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.

Like Clinton, Kerry supported “Bush’s war” against Iraq. Yet Kerry went one step further than Clinton and the rest of the neoconservative milieu by admitting that even if he had known Iraq had no WMDs, he would have voted to authorize the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Keep in mind that much of the Obama administration’s legacy rests on the fact that Obama opposed the Iraq war. Choosing someone with whom you have major philosophical differences with regards to foreign policy to be in charge of your administration’s foreign policy seems illogical. This is because the goals of U.S. imperialism do not change from president to president.

After the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington and its allies no longer faced a counterweight to their efforts at global expansion of the imperialist system. The wave of “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe allowed for sovereign governments to be replaced with regimes pliant to US/EU interests, with corporations standing to gain millions of new customers, all under the banner of “freedom and democracy.” Efforts to destroy Libya, Syria, and other former allies of the Soviet Union were discussed under President Clinton, solidified under Bush, and implemented by Obama. Far from slowing neoconservative ambitions, Obama has provided an invaluable facelift for drone programs, interventionism, and the destruction of sovereign countries.

The ascent of a privileged white male to Secretary of State is a symbolic reminder that below the surface, the interests of the bourgeoisie shape governmental policy.

The main enemy is at home. Every imperialist aggression, be it “blood for oil” or drones for democracy, must be opposed as part of delegitimizing governments that commit the world’s worst human rights violations and threaten the safety of our planet. Only a socialist planned economy, based on eliminating material scarcity for all, can stop permanent war.

US embassies are sites of espionage, not diplomacy

A CIA timetable and a report by the Wall Street Journal, both released on Nov. 1, have revealed the extent to which the CIA was involved in responding to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the agency’s massive presence in the country. The attack ended in the killing of ambassador Christopher Stephens, an architect of the war on Libya, and three others.

We now know that at least two of the three others killed were not diplomats or members of a security team, as was initially reported, but were former Navy SEALs who were working for the CIA.

While most news outlets have focused on the level of confusion that took place in the response to the attack, the report is significant in that it provides further confirmation of the colonialist nature of U.S. involvement in Libya. The report also illustrates the role of U.S. embassies throughout the world, which function not as sites for diplomacy but as sites for covert operations and intelligence gathering.

Further, the revelations shed light on the CIA’s massive presence in the once-sovereign country. CIA agents in Tripoli were dispatched to Benghazi to respond to the attack. The CIA has an armed compound in Benghazi about one mile from the U.S. embassy, which was also attacked on Sept. 11. The Wall Street Journal wrote: “the U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation.”

It is now known that several news agencies, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press, had known about the CIA’s extensive presence in Libya and role that it played in responding to the attacks, but had agreed to a request by the CIA not to make that information public. (The Huffington Post, Nov. 2) These news agencies, in other words, withheld information from the public in order to help the CIA frame the attack on Benghazi as an attack on U.S. diplomacy instead of what it was: an attack on U.S. imperialism.

A timetable released by the CIA suggests that the attack was planned and executed by a grouping of militants, countering the original State Department narrative which attributed the attack to a group of demonstrators protesting against an anti-Islamic film. During the first wave of the attack a fire was started with diesel fuel, which filled the embassy with a thick smoke, immobilizing those inside. As a convoy tried to flee the embassy, it came under fire from militants. Then, when the convoy reached the CIA base, that compound came under fire from weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

The CIA’s now massive presence in Libya is yet another affirmation that what took place in Libya last year was indeed a counterrevolution. Following the 1969 Libyan revolution led by Moammar Gaddafi, the country embarked on a path of nationalist development, which included purging two British military bases and the U.S. operated Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli.

What she forgot to mention was that the invasion of Libya was much harder than the imperialists had anticipated. It took history’s largest military alliance more than six months to bomb and slaughter their way into the capital of a country with a population smaller than that of New York City. The events in Bani Walid and elsewhere show that the heroic resistance of the Libyan people continues to this day.

Muammar Gaddafi was born into a Bedouin family and was raised in a tent. As a child, he walked miles to and from school each day. He was a bright young boy who experienced firsthand how the colonial system oppressed communities under occupation. His experiences and the values instilled in him by his parents would lead him to become a great advocate for the poor and oppressed worldwide, particularly in the Global South. Gaddafi was born to serve the masses and this is exactly what he did dutifully until his murder.

Gaddafi joined the military and even received training in Britain, reflecting the deep ties between British colonialism and the corrupt monarch King Idris. The highest ranking Gaddafi advanced to was Lieutenant.

Despite success in his military life, Gaddafi could not ignore the extreme poverty and exploitation gripping Libya. Under the King, Libya was one of the poorest nations in the world. Less than 1 in 5 Libyans were literate, while laws concerning divorce and other matters enforced inequality for women. After Italian fascism had claimed so many lives and left the country in shambles, the emerging feudal order also worked to prevent any Libyans not a part of the tiny elite from having a future. Libya needed a change of course that developed the country in an equitable way while preserving the rich heritage of Libya’s many tribes. Muammar Gaddafi was the man who would lead the transformation of Libya from impoverished colonial client state into Africa’s most prosperous, equitable, and developed nation.

On September 1, 1969, the Libyan “royal” family awoke to find that their regime was crumbling. A 27-year-old Lieutenant Gaddafi was launching what would come to be known as the al-Fateh Revolution. Supported by the military and the popular masses, a Revolutionary Command Council headed by Gaddafi seized state power. At 7a.m., the goals of the Revolution were announced by the Council in their first communiqué:

In answer to your free will, fulfilling your dearest wishes, welcoming your constant requests for change and eruption as well as your desire for action and enterprise, listening to your calls to revolt, your armed forces have undertaken to overthrow the reactionary and corrupted regime whose stench suffocated and whose vision horrified us.

In a single blow, your valiant army has upset the idols and smashed their effigies. In a single stroke, it has illuminated the dark night in which succeeded one another, first the Turkish and Italian domination, then finally, that of a reactionary and rotten regime where reigned concussion, fractions, felony and treachery. From now on, Libya is a free and sovereign republic, named the Libyan Arab Republic which, by the grace of God is setting herself to work. She will go forward on the path of freedom, union and social justice, guaranteeing each of her sons/daughters the right to equality, and opening before them the door of honest work, from which shall be banished injustice and exploitation, and where no one shall be either master or servant, where everyone shall be free brothers, within a society where shall prosperity and quality, by the grace of God.Give us your hands, open your hearts to us, forget all adversities and make front moulded in a single block against the enemy of the Arab nation, the enemy of Islam, the enemy of humanity, who set our sanctuaries afire, and flouted our honour Thus shall we build our glory, revive our inheritance, vindicate our ravaged dignity and the rights we were deprived of. Oh! You, who witnessed the sacred struggle of our hero Omar Al Mukthar for Libya, for Arabism and for Islam Oh! You, who fought alongside Ahmed Al-Sherif for a just ideal; you sons of the desert; you sons of our ancient cities; you sons of our green countryside; you sons of our beautiful villages; the time for work has arrived. Let us go forward! At this juncture, I am pleased to tell our foreign friends that they must fear neither for their properties nor for their lives.

They are under the protection of the armed forces. Moreover, I wish they would rest assured that our present undertaking is directed neither against nor against any acknowledged international treaty of international law. This is an exclusively domestic affair concerning Libya and her endemic problems. Forward then, and peace be with you.

Col. Gaddafi meets with Nasser.

At first, the orientation of the revolution was Arab nationalist and Gaddafi considered himself a protege of Gamal Nasser. Yet the al-Fateh Revolution ended up being greater because it was far more ambitious.

Power to the People: Libya’s government takes out advertisements in Anglophone media to announce the goals of the al-Fateh Revolution.

In 1977, the largest direct democracy project the world had ever known was announced. Colonel Gaddafi, who would be referred to by his people as the Brother Leader, handed over power to the people through directly democratic institutions. These institutions respected the integrity of tribal systems while allowing large-scale development projects to be pursued by the central government. This period marked the rapid construction of public housing, schools, hospitals, and roads. In addition, rights for women and children continued to be expanded after 1969. Libya would become one of the most advanced places for women outside of the Communist bloc.

Gaddafi authored The Green Book and other works that outlined his ideals. His first love was his family, which was why NATO forces killed his daughter and later his grandsons.

Col. Gaddafi’s wife, Safia, and their children.

While many of the projects pursued under the Jamahiriya government, like the Great Manmade River, were only made possible because of Gaddafi’s revolution, Gaddafi’s key achievement was empowering the Libyan people to control their own destinies and reach their full potential. In 2011, the literacy rate was higher than 80% with 99% literacy for those born after 1969. Libya’s development index was far higher than any other country in Africa, including Egypt and South Africa.

As the 21st century approached, Gaddafi recognized the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism and called on the Jamahiriya to pursue instead pan-African integration. Gaddafi supported development of other African nations and when Libya was under attack in 2011, large demonstrations supporting Gaddafi erupted across the continent. He was especially beloved by poor and working class people on the continent.

There is much to say about the noble man who stood up for humanity against its many enemies. Suffice to say that he will be remembered as one of the world’s greatest leaders and an honest person who gave his life for democracy, equality, and the promise of a better world for all. Even in his final moments, he was full of compassion.

Today is a day to celebrate the life and achievements of Muammar Gaddafi, and rather than feeling sad, to honor his legacy by advancing the just cause of global revolution.

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There are a plethora of questions surrounding the alleged attack on US diplomatic staff in Benghazi and the context in which the events supposedly took place.

As more information emerges it is clear that the narratives being circulated by both mainstream and alternative media are rife with irreconcilable contradictions which expose the necessity of a much deeper investigation.

“In a nation which lets its grief hang out as no other, oddly, daily searches find no funeral announcements for Ambassador Stevens or U.S. Air Force veteran Sean Smith, with ten years as an information management officer in what has been since 2009, Hillary Clinton’s State Department.”

“The September 11 attack that claimed the life of the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans disrupted a major CIA operation in the North African country.”

“According to the New York Times, at least half of the nearly two dozen US personnel evacuated from the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi following the fatal attack on the US consulate and a secret “annex” were “CIA operatives and contractors.”

Contrary to the New York Times report, there is no US consulate in Benghazi.

“Regarding the Benghazi incident, most people refer to “the US consulate,” when in reality the US site in Benghazi was not an embassy or a consulate, or even a “compound”. It was a collection of villas (that is, a gated community) privately owned by one Mohammad Al Bishari, who was leasing the villas to US State Department personnel.” Reports have emphasized that Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues were staying in villas that had no security.”

No security?

Yet according to CNN’s report on the journal entries made by Chris Stevens, he was concerned about the increased presence of Islamic extremists and believed that he was on an al Qaeda hit list.

This report from The Independent raises the question as to why no action was taken to protect staff when the US government had 48 hours warning that an attack was immanent.

Also, the Times report cited in Bill Van Auken’s article is misleading when it asserts that, “the CIA “began building a meaningful but covert presence in Benghazi” within months of the February 2011 revolt in Benghazi that seized the city from forces loyal to the government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.”

It is well known that the CIA made no less than six assassination attempts on the life of Muammar Gaddafi before his brutal murder in October, 2011. (This does not include Operation El Dorado Canyon – 1986 or the eight months of steady aerial bombardments by NATO’s 2011 Operation Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector Campaign when strategic strikes targeted homes of the Gaddafi family members as well as annihilating over 100,000 Libyans and destroying most of the country’s vital infrastructure.)

Why the need for the US to suddenly deny their close working relationship with Islamic extremists?

The West Point Document revealed that the “Libyan rebels” were the same terrorists who slaughtered US personnel in Iraq.

The relationship between the US, the CIA, NATO and al Qaeda is decades long and has been mutually advantageous.

As war efforts escalate against Syria, with Iran in the line of sight, Islamist terror cells from every region are converging in Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood are reaping a rich harvest from the “Arab Spring” orgy of CIA destabilizations. There is every indication that the relationship between the Islamists and the West is irrevocably conjoined.

Whatever the truth may be regarding events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, I am certain that they were planned in advance, that they were controlled and well coordinated and that they will serve imperialist interests as the war theater continues its advance throughout Africa and the Middle East.

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